During the summer of 2015, twelve undergraduates from the University of Chicago will gain substantive, project-based professional research experience at the Marine Biological Laboratory through the MBL/Jeff Metcalf Summer for Undergraduate Research Fellows program (SURF). The goal of the SURF Program is to introduce students to scientific research under the guidance and direction of MBL’s leading scientists.

“The Metcalf SURF Program represents the best of the MBL/UC partnership as it reflects the enthusiasm of both institutions for research and educational advancement,” says Beth Simmons, MBL-University of Chicago Assistant Director for Education Programs.

Reflective of the program’s past success, this year saw an increase in the number of applications from first to fourth-year students whom expressed interest in a variety of research areas including medicine, developmental biology, genetic diseases, neurology and immunology, oceanography, and ecology.

The twelve-week program encourages students to initiate a project proposal which couples the student with an MBL faculty scientist whose expertise mirrors the student’s research interests and career goals. Each advising scientist mentors and guides the student toward successful project completion. Student experiences vary with each discipline, providing both hands-on field and laboratory-based training in an effort to allow a comprehensive research experience.

The Program is enriched by weekly lunch-seminars with MBL faculty, networking opportunities with other undergraduates on campus, evening lectures, and a variety of cultural and social activities throughout the summer. Additional professional development series workshops are also offered to assist in navigating career and graduate school admissions processes.

SURF students culminate their experience with an undergraduate student symposium through which they have the opportunity to present their projects to their peers and the MBL community prior to submission of a final paper detailing the project, its goals and related successes.

The 2015 Metcalf SURF students are:

Ruby An
“Optimizing the Performance of an Algae-to-Methane Coupled Bioreactor System Through Experimental and Modeling Approaches”
Mentors: Zoe Cardon /Joe Vallino, Ecosystems Center

Eva Kinnebrew
Impact of Soil Nitrogen Levels on Species Diversity in Northeastern Grasslands and the Role of Grazing in Mediating the Nitrogen-Diversity Relationship”
Mentor: Chris Neill, Ecosystems Center

These awards support innovative scientific collaborations among faculty at the MBL and UChicago/Argonne, in service of laying the foundation for long-term interactions between the institutions. Teams of at least one UChicago/Argonne and one MBL resident scientist are eligible to receive the awards. The following projects were awarded:

“The molecular evolution of a neuron”Jennifer Morgan, Bell Center, and collaborators Melina Hale, Department of Organismal Biology and Anatomy, University of Chicago, and Jeramiah Smith, Biology Department, University of Kentucky

“Can biodiversity and ecological function be restored to the residential landscape? A MBL-University of Chicago-Nature Conservancy workshop to develop science for testing the efficacy of backyard management”Christopher Neill, Ecosystems Center, and collaborators Charles Catlett, Urban Center for Computation and Data, University of Chicago; Andrew Chien, Department of Computer Science, University of Chicago; and Tom Chase, The Nature Conservancy

The grant program honors Frank R. Lillie, the early 20th-century embryologist who served as the MBL’s second director and as chair of UChicago’s Department of Zoology. Awards are open to collaborators from the MBL and the University of Chicago or Argonne National Laboratory.

A. Murat Eren and Eugene B. Chang will build an open-source software platform to investigate the intricate role of microbial communities in human digestive diseases.

The grants bring together interdisciplinary teams of scientists for a project that represents a new collaborative area of inquiry for the investigators. The goal is to stimulate “blue sky” thinking that has the potential to lead to significant external funding with a consortium of collaborators working together on a big problem.

One Lillie Award was given to MBL Assistant Research Scientist, A. Murat Eren and Eugene B. Chang, a Professor of Medicine at the University of Chicago, who will build a high-performance, open-source software platform to study metagenomics, a powerful tool that is used to analyze the genetic material of microbial communities extracted directly from the environment. Once built, the researchers plan to use the software to investigate the intricate role of microbial communities in human digestive diseases.

Another grant was awarded to MBL Associate Scientist Jianwu Tang and Yuki Hamada, an Associate Biophysical Remote Sensing Scientist at Argonne National Laboratory, who will develop a novel approach to measure plant photosynthesis and other ecosystem functions that can be used to quantify the impacts of environmental change on ecosystems and agricultural systems.

Jianwu Tang, Tomomi Tani, and Yuki Hamada (left to right) will develop a novel approach to measure plant photosynthesis and other ecosystem functions that can be used to quantify the impacts of environmental change on ecosystems and agricultural systems.

“The Lillie Awards are important to support and stimulate new collaborations between the MBL and the University of Chicago,” said MBL President and Director Huntington Willard. “The two projects that have been awarded have great potential for impacting both the science and its implications for the world we live in. This program is even more far-reaching, since it catalyzes interactions between our campuses at many different levels, which will have numerous payoffs down the line.”

Eren, a computer scientist by training, builds novel algorithms to make sense of complex datasets. As part of the MBL’s Josephine Bay Paul Center for Comparative Molecular Biology and Evolution, he recently developed oligotyping, a computational method that can help microbial ecologists investigate closely related bacterial groups with unprecedented sensitivity. At the University of Chicago, Chang leads a research program that aims to elucidate the role of microbial communities in the development and progression of human digestive diseases.

Eren and Chang’s project will contribute to the fields of microbiology and microbial ecology by tackling processing and visualization challenges that currently prevent researchers from having full control of their metagenomic data. Their software platform has the potential to transform how scientists interpret metagenomic data, which may have tremendous long-term implications on our understanding of the microbial world.

Understanding the response of natural ecosystems, agriculture, and urban ecosystems to the changing environment is critically important to guide sustainable development and protect the human environment. However, the ability to measure complex ecosystem functions (such as photosynthesis, respiration, water uptake, and nutrient cycling) and understand their processes on an ecosystem scale is limited.

Tang and Hamada’s project will address these challenges by building on Tang’s work in the MBL’s Ecosystems Center and developing a novel system to automatically measure plant fluorescence and its link to photosynthesis. This system will be integrated with Hamada’s work collecting ecosystem function data using Argonne’s EcoSpec tower-based hyperspectral remote sensing system, which explores the power of optical information to predict the dynamics of ecosystem functions. The team will further refine their approach by adding pixel-based fluorescence data and tapping the skills of MBL Associate Scientist Tomomi Tani who has been working on instrument development of fluorescent imaging for studying sub-cellular dynamics in living cells. Tang and Hamada expect their project to have a broad impact on the field in ecology, environmental science, agricultural science, remote sensing, and global change research.

The Lillie Awards will support up to two years of pilot research for a total of $125,000 per award. Recipients will be able to develop their projects over a period including two or three successive summers, working in residence as a team at the MBL, in addition to continued progress on the project during the traditional academic years in between MBL visits.

A complete list of 2015 Lillie Award recipients and their teams is listed below.

The Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL) is dedicated to scientific discovery and improving the human condition through research and education in biology, biomedicine, and environmental science. Founded in Woods Hole, Massachusetts, in 1888, the MBL is a private, nonprofit institution and an affiliate of the University of Chicago.

The University of Chicago has built an array of programs to create an entrepreneurial ecosystem that can help researchers navigate the path toward commercialization and overcome the hurdles to attracting investment. These programs include the Chicago Innovation Exchange, The New Venture Challenge, accelerator and incubator programs, and the University of Chicago Innovation Fund.

About the Innovation FundThe Innovation Fund is a philanthropic proof-of-concept fund created to support the evolution of your ideas into products and services. The Fund has now been expanded to $20 million dollars and is open to current UChicago and affiliated lab faculty, staff, and students with technologies in a wide variety of industries.

Applications are due via electronic submission by Thursday, March 12th.

WOODS HOLE, MA — Huntington Willard, an innovative leader in the fields of genetics and genome biology who has built comprehensive research centers at leading institutions, has been appointed the next president and director of the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, Massachusetts.

University of Chicago President Robert J. Zimmer, who is also Chairman of the MBL’s Board of Trustees, announced the appointment to the MBL and University communities. MBL is an affiliate of the University of Chicago, a relationship designed to yield novel avenues for scientific discovery and education at both institutions.

At the MBL, Willard will lead one of the world’s foremost centers for biological research, international collaboration and education. Willard, currently the Arts & Sciences Professor of Biology and Genome Sciences at Duke University, will begin his appointment at the MBL on January 1, 2015.

Willard has earned a reputation as a groundbreaking scientist, a strong leader and builder of complex academic initiatives, as well as a talented educator who has received multiple teaching awards. From 2003 to 2014 he was the founding Director of the Duke Institute for Genome Sciences and Policy, a highly interdisciplinary unit that spanned the life sciences, engineering, medicine, social sciences and the humanities. For that program, Willard recruited 35 faculty members to Duke across 21 departments and established broad institutional strength in the genome sciences. He had previously chaired the Department of Genetics at Case Western Reserve University, where he also built a widely respected program of research and education.

As a researcher, Willard has explored many facets of genetics and genome biology, with a particular interest in the structure and function of chromosomes, the epigenetic regulation of gene silencing, and the evolution and organization of complex genomes. He is an elected member of the National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and has won many awards for genetics scholarship, including the William Allan Award from the American Society of Human Genetics.

“Hunt Willard is an outstanding scholar and a proven scientific leader who has created programs that have earned international respect,” said Zimmer. “He exemplifies the values that guide the Marine Biological Laboratory and the University of Chicago — wide-ranging collaboration, eagerness to explore and define new fields of study, and a dedication to discovery through engaged education. We are delighted to welcome him to this community, and confident that he will lead the MBL in a way that preserves its strengths, creates new opportunities for growth, and takes advantage of the relationship with the University of Chicago.”

Willard said he was attracted by the MBL’s historic role as a beacon for scientists from around the world, including its renowned summer courses and creative year-round programs of research and education.

“I’m honored to be named the next president and director of MBL,” Willard said. “The MBL has enjoyed such a strong tradition of integrating research and education since its founding, and offers wonderful opportunities to develop and implement novel strategies for tackling some of the most pressing questions in life sciences and biomedical research today. The highly interdisciplinary nature of its year-round and visiting scientists and students offers unique combinations of scholarship, teamwork and adaptability that can’t be easily matched elsewhere. I can’t imagine a place that better illustrates the values of integrated research and education that are important to me — as a scientist, an educator and as a leader. I look forward with great enthusiasm to joining this community, at both MBL and the University of Chicago.”

Jennifer Morgan, an MBL scientist and associate director of the Eugene Bell Center for Regenerative Biology and Tissue Engineering, said Willard is a perfect fit for the MBL’s intellectual culture.

“As a leader who has brought together researchers with many diverse kinds of expertise, Hunt Willard is an exceptional choice to enrich the spirit of innovation and collaboration that has guided the MBL since its founding in 1888,” Morgan said.

The MBL is known as an institution dedicated to scientific discovery and improving the human condition through research and education in biology, biomedicine and environmental science. In July 2013 the MBL and the University of Chicago formed an affiliation that is producing growing collaborations between the two institutions and researchers at Argonne National Laboratory, which is managed by UChicago and has many research ties to the University.

In addition to his leadership of the MBL, Willard will have a faculty appointment in the Department of Human Genetics at the University of Chicago. Prior to his appointments at Duke and Case Western Reserve, Willard held faculty positions at the University of Toronto and Stanford University and was founding president and director of the University Hospitals of Cleveland Research Institute. He received his PhD in genetics from Yale University and his AB degree in biology from Harvard University.

Willard is widely considered a leading figure among American geneticists, having authored or contributed to more than 300 scholarly publications, providing fundamental insights and new tools for studying how cells inactivate genes on the X chromosome and what DNA sequences are involved in chromosome segregation during cell division. His team also received international attention in 1997 when it constructed the world’s first human artificial chromosome.

“What’s so extraordinary about Hunt Willard’s academic career is his demonstrated ability to lead the charge in scientific discovery, both as an investigator and as a director of several large, ambitious programs,” said Neil Shubin, the Robert R. Bensley Distinguished Service Professor of Organismal Biology and Anatomy and associate dean for academic strategy in UChicago’s Biological Sciences Division. “He has a sense of where fields are going, and an ability to identify and recruit the best academic talent. That’s going to make him an outstanding leader for the MBL, and a great colleague for all of us.”

Sally Kornbluth, provost of Duke University and the James B. Duke Professor of Pharmacology and Cancer Biology, praised Willard’s contributions at Duke.

“Hunt Willard is a stellar scientist, an energetic teacher and an innovative leader who helped make genomics a point of excellence at Duke,” Kornbluth said. “His appointment at the MBL heralds an exciting opportunity for the laboratory.”

Willard will succeed Arthur M. Sussman, the MBL’s interim president and director, who assumed that role in November with the departure of former president and director Joan Ruderman. President Zimmer sent a message to the MBL community last May praising Ruderman’s record of commitment to the lab, which began in 1974 when she first arrived as a post-doctoral researcher.

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The Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL) is dedicated to scientific discovery and improving the human condition through research and education in biology, biomedicine, and environmental science. Founded in Woods Hole, Massachusetts, in 1888, the MBL is a private, nonprofit institution and an affiliate of the University of Chicago.

A recent workshop at the MBL exploring the past, present, and future of cell biology attracted nearly 40 leading biologists, historians, philosophers, and graduate students. The workshop, “Updating Cowdry at the MBL,” was organized by Karl Matlin of the University of Chicago and Jane Maienschein of the MBL and Arizona State University through a collaborative grant stemming from the UChicago-MBL affiliation. It was the first event in an ongoing project that will lead to publication of a book on the topic.

The point of departure for the workshop was a gathering of biologists at the MBL more than 90 years ago led by cytologist Edmund V. Cowdry. Cowdry convened this group of scientists, all of whom conducted research at the MBL, with the intention of producing a volume that would examine “the cell fundamental,” recognizing that such a book could no longer be produced by a single individual and instead required contributions from multiple perspectives and fields. In 1924, General Cytology, the product of Cowdry’s efforts, was published by The University of Chicago Press.

As these biologists, including Cowdry, Edmund Beecher Wilson, Frank Lillie, Thomas Hunt Morgan, and the other authors acknowledged, cell biology in 1924 was only in its infancy. Cytologists sought to find ways to describe details inside cells, including sorting out which features are important, and physicochemical and physiological processes remained relatively mysterious. In many ways, despite the growing number of researchers studying cells and a recognized need to understand the most fundamental cellular structures and processes, the cell remained a frontier for exploration.

In the subsequent decades, cell biology has developed far beyond what Cowdry could have imagined. New technologies, such as electron microscopy and cell fractionation, enabled cell biology to become a molecular science, while new disciplines, including molecular genetics and systems biology, have expanded the scope of possibilities. More recently, the ability to examine molecular events in living cells using fluorescent probes, and the capability to model these events using computers make it possible to extend the age-old search for mechanisms in biology into the realm of emergent structures and functions dictated by dynamic properties.

All of these topics were represented at the October 23-24 workshop, with historians framing the past, cell biologists describing the present, and philosophers analyzing the evolution of epistemic strategies accompanying the maturation of cell biology into a 21st-century science.

The next steps in the project include a moderated discussion of ideas emanating from the workshop with the goal of identifying new frontiers and paths of exploration. This will result in a list of topics for deeper exploration at a second workshop to be held at the MBL in October 2015, and leading to the anticipated book.

These awards support innovative scientific collaborations among faculty at the MBL and UChicago/Argonne, in service of laying the foundation for long-term interactions between the institutions. Teams of at least one UChicago/Argonne and one MBL resident scientist are eligible to receive the awards. The following projects were awarded:

“High-Resolution Microbiome Informatics”— A. Murat Eren, Bay Paul Center, MBL, and collaborator Jack Gilbert, Department of Ecology & Evolution, University of Chicago, will work with co-investigators Jessica Mark Welch and Mitchell Sogin of the Bay Paul Center; Andrew Chien, Department of Computer Science, University of Chicago; and Eugene Chang, Department of Medicine, University of Chicago.

The students’ doctoral research topics at UChicago are diverse, ranging from evolutionary development to cell migration to indoor microbial communities. At the MBL, they have the opportunity to enhance their research programs by enrolling in a summer course and/or undertaking research with an MBL mentor.

“I am guessing at least one of you will have a transformative experience at the MBL, and will come back here for the rest of your life,” said Jonathan Gitlin, MBL’s deputy director of Research and Programs, at a breakfast honoring the 2014 MBL Research Awardees, including the UChicago graduate students. [Read more…]

The University of Chicago is creating a new professorship in tissue engineering to promote innovative work at the University’s Institute for Molecular Engineering and the Marine Biological Laboratory, supported by a $3.5 million donation from the Millicent and Eugene Bell Foundation.

The starlet sea anemone (Nematostella) is an emerging model organism for the study of regeneration. Credit: Adam Reitzel, courtesy of John R. Finnerty

The Eugene Bell Professorship in Tissue Engineering will reside within the Institute for Molecular Engineering. That endowed chair holder also will direct a research project at the MBL’s Eugene Bell Center for Regenerative Biology and Tissue Engineering, and will have an appointment at the Bell Center. The MBL and UChicago formed an affiliation in 2013 to advance biological research and education at both institutions.

Tissue engineering and regenerative biology have the potential to produce breakthroughs in healing damaged body parts or even growing new organs. They are inherently multidisciplinary fields, drawing from new technology in materials science and fabrication as well as basic research in fields such as genetics and cell biology.

“The emerging collaborations between scientists at the University and the MBL are well suited to address the scientific challenges of tissue engineering,” said President Robert J. Zimmer. “Many innovations in medical treatments depend on robust links of basic research and new technology. We are grateful for the generous support of the Millicent and Eugene Bell Foundation, which will allow our scholars to do pioneering work in the rapidly changing field of tissue engineering.”

The new professorship will foster scholarship on tissue engineering at the MBL and the Institute for Molecular Engineering, where scientists are focused on exploring innovative technology at the molecular scale, with the potential for societal impact in areas including health care, computing, energy and the environment.

“We have a very unusual chance with our colleagues at the MBL to bring together different scientific perspectives and specialties in search of breakthrough discoveries that could have profound impacts for patients,” said Matt Tirrell, the founding Pritzker Director of the Institute for Molecular Engineering.

For more than a century, scientists at the MBL in Woods Hole, Mass. have studied how certain marine species are able to regenerate damaged tissue. The MBL’s Bell Center includes a national resource for research on the frog called Xenopus, which has unique regenerative abilities and is a major animal model for biomedical research.

“This extraordinary gift from the Millicent and Eugene Bell Foundation continues the Bell family’s generous support of the Marine Biological Laboratory by providing a transformative research opportunity in our affiliation with the University of Chicago,” said MBL President and Director Joan Ruderman.

Millicent Bell, a trustee of the Marine Biological Laboratory since 2009, made the gift through the Bell Foundation in memory of her late husband, Dr. Eugene Bell, a longtime member of the MBL scientific community. While a professor at MIT from 1956 to 1986, Eugene Bell founded the field of tissue engineering through efforts to generate replacement tissue for treating severe burns and other injuries. After retiring from MIT, Eugene Bell founded two companies: Organogenesis Inc., to produce replacement skin, and TEI Biosciences, which used expertise in regenerative medicine to develop new biologic products for various soft tissue repair applications.

“Gene would have been delighted to see how beautifully his hopes for a grand future for tissue engineering are going forward, and I am overjoyed to be able to continue to help in the effort,” Millicent Bell said. “I am looking forward to the prospect of advanced research and of its medical application that will result—and am extremely pleased to see Gene’s humane dreams realized.”

Millicent Bell is a retired professor of English at Boston University and the author of numerous books, including Edith Wharton and Henry James: The Story of their Friendship and Marquand: An American Life. She is the recipient of many honors, including a Howard Foundation fellowship, the Shell Award, a Guggenheim fellowship and the Winship Prize for biography. Her longtime support of the MBL includes gifts totaling $8 million to help establish the Bell Center in 2010.

About the University of Chicago

One of the world's premier academic and research institutions, the University of Chicago has driven new ways of thinking since its 1890 founding. Today, UChicago is an intellectual destination that draws inspired scholars to its Hyde Park and international campuses, keeping UChicago at the nexus of ideas that challenge and change the world.

With a commitment to free and open inquiry, scholars at UChicago take an interdisciplinary approach to research that spans arts to engineering, medicine to education. The University's scholars, students and alumni have made an impact around the globe by advancing fields of study, creating new disciplines, and taking leadership roles in business, science, law, and a range of fields.